Chapter 3: Exploring the Myanmar Jade Emporium
Myanmar was impossibly hot. Forty degrees was routine, not even considered extreme—far worse than Yunnan. Yet still, crowds of people braved the merciless sun to hunt for jade. Because this was the Mount Hua summit of the jade world, the holy grail for every jade seeker. If you hadn't been here, you couldn't call yourself a true insider!
This was Myanmar's official jade emporium.
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Early that morning, a taxi took Uncle Harvey and me to the emporium venue.
The outermost gate was a long, semi-circular arch bristling with red, yellow, and green Myanmar flags. Armed guards stood watch at the entrance. I scrutinized the submachine guns they carried and noticed they had loaded magazines—many venues with armed guards merely carried ceremonial rifles or didn't load magazines at all. But at the jade emporium, the bullets were real.
Uncle Harvey directed me first to a small room on the right side of the gate, like a reception booth. As we approached, I saw that the outer wall appeared to be made of stone. At first I thought it was very 1990s wallpaper, but looking closer, I gasped:
The entire wall was covered with "wallpaper" made of genuine jade slices. Looking further left, I realized the entire exterior of the emporium exhibition hall was decorated with jade.
I turned to Uncle Harvey. "Is it really this lavish? Using jade to tile walls?"
Uncle Harvey said, "Myanmar produces this stuff. For them, jade that's not good enough to sell as merchandise is just rocks from the mountains. These aren't even high quality. Wait until you see the Shwedagon Pagoda—the inner hall is tiled entirely in jade, and the Buddha is carved from a massive jade block."
"My god!" I was still stunned, reaching out to touch the jade on the wall.
"Come on, let's go register your fingerprints inside."
Not only did we need fingerprints, but there was also security screening. The checkpoint had even more armed police—a sea of gray uniforms, all carrying loaded weapons. I tried to count them but felt too intimidated to stare. After squeezing through, which took several minutes, we finally entered the actual emporium venue.
The deeper I walked, the more excited I became. Uncle Harvey had brought me here, and it certainly wasn't just for sightseeing. What use could I be to him? He couldn't possibly need me to appraise stones—he was a hundred times more expert than I was. Was I supposed to be his assistant? His team wasn't short of talent. But since I was here, it had to be a massive opportunity!
The jade on display was divided into sections labeled A, B, C, D, and so on, each separated by chain-link fencing with its own gate guards who checked clothing and bags to prevent theft. Yet within each section, these precious raw jade stones were simply laid on the ground. Individual boards were placed on the ground, with the jade resting on top, cut side facing up, and tags indicating lot numbers and weights. The largest stones weighed several tons each. Smaller ones were grouped—sometimes several stones under one lot number, and even smaller ones bundled in lots of ten or even a hundred.
Some raw jade stones were simply kept in rusty, battered iron cages, making me wonder if they were worthless—until I checked the tags: starting price 10,000 euros.
Uncle Harvey said, "Let's look at the materials first. Bids don't close until the day after tomorrow, so we can fill out bid forms anytime before then."
I asked, "Isn't the auction the day after tomorrow? What do you mean by 'close' the bids?"
Uncle Harvey explained, "It's not a live auction. They need time to tally the results. Each day, they process only a portion of the emporium's results. The third day reveals the first day's closed bids, the fourth day reveals the second day's, and so on."
I was still confused about the bidding process. "So it's not an auction, it's sealed bids?"
"Exactly. Nobody knows what anyone else is offering."
"That doesn't make sense! Wouldn't an auction fetch higher prices?"
"But an auction would be impossible to organize. Because if it were an auction, someone could just watch what the knowledgeable buyers were bidding on and outbid them by a small margin. All the jade experts would get sniped, and anyone with enough money could just follow the smart money."
I had an epiphany. "So the experts can't buy anything, and the system breaks down!"
"Right. The current sealed-bid system is actually very scientific."
"Then we need to find a place to hide when we fill out our bid forms..."
"Absolutely. If I know you bid 10,000, I could just bid 10,001, and the lot would be mine. You'd have no recourse." Uncle Harvey said this while pulling out his flashlight and notebook, already focusing on the stones.
The entire section laid out stones on the ground in this primitive fashion—not unimpressive. I'd only looked at a hundred or so lots and was already dazzled. But Uncle Harvey seemed to have a clear purpose. He walked briskly, passing most stones without a glance, stopping only when one caught his eye for a closer examination. Sometimes he'd jot down a lot number, other times he'd shine his flashlight at a particular spot.
"Uncle Harvey, are all the emporium stones this large?"
"These are still the average quality. Wait until we get to the covered area inside—that's where the premium section is." He went back to studying the stones. I could barely contain my anticipation for the premium section; the stones here all looked somewhat similar.
At the end of this path, there were several hundred lots. The last stone before the turnoff was about the size of a small stool—800 kilograms, with a white, bean-paste base, coarse and colorless, not particularly impressive. But within it, a vivid green color line ran through, and the texture rose to glutinous-ice grade, with tiny purple dots scattered around it. The problem was—both the purple and green were faint and elusive. The stone was cut open, but how far the colors extended inside, nobody could say for certain.
I was about to examine it more closely when a butt blocked my view. Uncle Harvey's butt. He'd actually sat down on the jade, hunched over his phone, replying to messages. After a moment, he looked up and saw me staring at him with a strange expression.
Uncle Harvey smiled and said, "Just look and move on. Don't waste time on these stones."
I looked up at him. "Why are the raw stones in this section not particularly high quality? Shouldn't the emporium have the best stones?"
"Of course not. The emporium isn't just for top-grade rough stones. The jade industry doesn't earn all its money from premium goods alone. Every grade of jade has its market and its profit margins."
This surprised me. "Then what is the emporium?"
"The emporium is a dangerous place..." Uncle Harvey stood up and pointed toward the inner part of the venue. "It's where all the masters come to compete. Where we're heading now is the summit."
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In the direction he pointed, I saw a building like a sports arena, draped in Myanmar flags. This must be the premium section he mentioned.
Inside, the hall featured red carpets and elegant display cases on both sides.
In addition to jade, there were small shops selling other gems directly. Myanmar was a land that produced rubies and sapphires—both were types of corundum, with red ones called rubies and blue, yellow, pink, and all other colors called sapphires.
Myanmar also produced amber—rare hard amber, deep red blood amber, and blue amber that appeared amber under diffuse light but reflected a ghostly blue under direct light.
Myanmar's colored gemstones were equally rich: spinel, labradorite, prehnite, garnet, aquamarine, and more. Decades ago, these were worth almost nothing. Every time I heard how cheap they once were, I wished I'd been born earlier.
Myanmar also had natural golden pearls—larger than South Sea pearls. The finest were flawless, with intense luster and deep golden color, reaching over 20mm in diameter. You simply couldn't put them down.